Yorkshire Terrier Grooming Tips

If you want your Yorkshire Terrier to look its best it will require a lot of effort and some expertise on your part, but the end outcome will be value it. This article will outline the basics of proper Yorkshire Terrier grooming, for shows or for your personal pleasure.

There are several things that need to be done before you bathe your dog. For this purpose, you will need to eliminate mats and snarls from the dog’s coat. You will do this by slowly running your fingers through your dog’s coat, whenever you feel resistance find the knot and carefully untangle it. Once you are done with this you can start lightly brushing your Yorkshire Terrier’s coat. If you notice that the coat is matted that might indicate one of two things – either you’re not grooming the coat often enough or your dog has a soft coat.

Yorkshire Terrier Grooming: Yorkshire Terrier is a small dog breed

If the latter is the case you need to groom your dog’s coat much more often that if it had the silk coat. This might require too much effort so you might consider shortening his coat to puppy cut; otherwise it might become impossible to properly take care of. Not only do soft coats mat at almost daily bases and frequent grooming might actually hurt your dog and cause him serious discomfort, they also collect dirt much faster, which combined with constant irritation from grooming creates ideal conditions for inflammations.

You should also brush your dog’s teeth before bathing it. Tartar and various bacterial infections can easily develop if you don’t pay proper attention to your dog’s oral hygiene. If left untreated this can then lead to tooth loss and, eventually, digestive problems.

Once you’re done with the teeth check your dog’s ears, if you notice irritations consult your vet. If there is none, check the ear channels for hair, and if you find any remove it. If you want to, this might be the excellent time to clip the hair from the dog’s ears.

The last step before the bathing itself is trimming the Yorkshire Terrier’s nails. Take care not to remove too much of the nail as that might cause bleeding, have some Quick Stop or some other clotting agent handy, just in case this happens. You can use clippers for this, but there are also good nail fails for dogs if you would be more comfortable using them than clippers.

Now on to the bathing. If you are using a modern dog shampoo you don’t need to rub it in its coat, just distribute it evenly along the wet fur. Leave it in to give it a chance to lift out the dirt and then rinse it until you are certain that there is no shampoo residue left, this is very important as leftover shampoo can cause a lot of damage both to the coat and skin. After you’re done with the rinsing apply conditioner.

Dry your dog by wrapping it in a towel and holding it for a couple of minutes. If you need to, trim the excess hair from his feet and gently brush his fur. All you need now is a nice bow and you have a show-ready Yorkshire Terrier.